Lasing action at around 1.9 μm from an ultrafast laser inscribed Tm-doped glass waveguide.

We report optical guiding and laser action at around 1.9 mu m in a Tm(3+)-doped fluorogermanate glass waveguide fabricated using ultrafast laser inscription. A monolithic laser cavity was constructed by directly butt coupling dielectric mirrors to each facet of the 6.0mm long Tm(3+)-doped waveguide. When the waveguide was pumped by a Ti:sapphire laser tuned to 791nm, laser oscillation was achieved at around 1.91 mu m. This waveguide laser exhibited a maximum slope efficiency of 6% and a maximum output power of 32mW when pumped with 620mW of incident laser power. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America